Abstract:
Without magnetic compasses, sextants, or maps, and long before European ships had entered the Pacific, Polynesian voyagers were finding their way across 25 million square kilometres of ocean. Over time they discovered and settled a vast number of widely scattered islands, including Aotearoa New Zealand, using navigation techniques, such as reading star paths, swell frequencies, and cloud formations, that were handed down through generations. The feats of the Polynesian navigators have been likened, relative to the technology and knowledge of the times, to the modern moon missions.